Or users could maybe learn how to do things without having their hands held and treated like babies every step of the way; or at least how to search for information to find what they need… 🤷🏻♂️
Or, maybe yo will understand when you grow up that people are good at different things.
Garuntee there’s some pretty easy things for me to do that you would get left behind trying to do, and not just on PC
Same for you. You know some things you’d blow me away doing.
Just because you don’t know what I know , and vice versa, doesn’t mean people are dumb.
Means they’ve learned different things.
Nah, I get that we’re all good at different things. But people should be good at doing basic research and troubleshooting.
We use computers all the time. Many of us use cars all the time. And we know how to fuel them up, check and top-up oil, add wiper fluid, check coolant, etc. There’s also the manual to refer to if we don’t know.
Same shit with PCs. But people aren’t willing to put in the bare minimum effort to do shit, and companies take advantage of that to ruin it for everyone.
we should all be extremely well versed in how our government works, how to make meals , how to fix our clothes, how to grow our own food, and how to spot a person who’s scamming us, as well be able to do all of the other specialized things humans need ti stay alive
guarantee neither of us knows everything on that list as well as we should, I a double damn guarantee those re all far more important than a PC .
not that hat you do, or your interest aren’t important to you, and I am not making light of then, but I think you get where I’m heading
took over 55 years for me to stop assuming we all have the same 24 hours we don’t , so we prioritize learning different things to survive
They could. But you and I both know they won’t because most people don’t care about anything beyond ‘make the magic box work so I can do my job / play my game / etc.’
Because we keep feeding them stupid pills and encouraging them not to think. Microsoft was a pioneer of the whole “water down software and call it user-frienfly’” thing.
That’s not it at all. You don’t think accountants who juggle numbers and Excel formulas all day couldn’t learn? Lawyers whose entire job involves absorbing and filtering vast amounts of information? Doctors who diagnose machines that are far more complex than computers (people)? Of course they could; I worked around these people in IT for 20 years, I can tell you that despite how stupid these folks seem around computers they feel the same way about your capabilities in their field of expertise, only they don’t have the arrogance to assume that everyone should learn to be a mechanical engineer or dentist in order to understand their job.
What they are is too busy doing other shit that they care more about. They don’t have the time or interest to be farting around with a computer to do anything more than the absolute minimum requirements needed to do the shit they actually care about. Human society functions because people specialize, and people who don’t specialize in making computers go just don’t care enough about them as anything other than as a tool and maybe an occasional source of entertainment to waste their time learning. Just like you don’t waste your time learning about how to run a nuclear power plant.
And I say this as someone who used to love tinkering with computers, turned it into a career, and slowly grew to hate it (never turn your hobby into a career if you want to keep that hobby.) I too no longer care about optimizing or fiddling or tweaking, I just want the magic box to work so I can do the stuff I care about (writing, gaming, etc.)
A person can only specialize in a small number of things.
I’m happy to learn about computers, but when it comes to, say, cars, I have no desire to learn. If I have a car problem, I don’t have the knowledge of how to even look up a problem.
In today world, you don’t need to specialize in something to fix basic issues. Simple online search will help you with most basic issues You encounter which is probably 60-70% issues most people have with cars, computers or etc.
I don’t blame people that they can’t recompile a kernel, applying a patch to fix some random issue. But I blame people that didn’t want to spend 30s on searching how to fix their minor issue like for example checking execute permission for appimage, Search engines today even tell you how to do it in a small AI window on top of the page.
Internet really helped people to gain a basic knowledge in a matter of seconds and yet they still don’t want it
Just built a new PC literally this weekend. WiFi mouse and Bluetooth drivers did not work out of the box. I had to spend hours searching through what little info exists out there tangentially related to my problem to find:
WiFi drivers were fixed in kernel 6.10, which fortunately Mint let’s you upgrade to 6.11 at this time with relative ease.
Bluetooth drivers do not appear to have been fixed, but I might have a shot if I switch over to a rolling release distro and relearn everything I’m used to from using Debian-based distros for years. Dongle is on order, but I don’t love having to have 2 bluetooth devices.
It’s unclear if mouse drivers have been fixed in the kernel, but I was able to find a nice set of drivers/controller on github which fixed some mouse problems but only if i used their experimental branch and it did not work with my wireless adapter. Very fortunately I had an old wireless adapter from a mouse from the same brand that was able to close the loop, but that was just dumb luck.
By EOD today I should have everything I want working, but it wasn’t “30s” of searching - to your point, 60-70% of problems may be solvable that way, but having 1/3 of your problems require technical expertise is not going to bring Linux out of the hobbyist domain.
Note: this is not a complaint against Linux, just a statement of fact. These things have gotten a lot better over the years, and things get easier to find as the community grows and these struggles get discussed more openly, but there’s still lots of challenges out there that take more than a 30s search.
Can you put gas in your car? Do you know how to check your oil and add more? Can you put wiper fuild in? Do you know how to check coolant levels?
Most importantly: do you know how to RTFM to do this stuff if needed?
That would put you miles above the typical PC using idiot that we keep coddling by ruining things we use.
search for information when Google intentionally lies to you and hides results to keep you on their site looking at ads longer …
This is part of what keeps Linux a niche for enthusiasts and professionals though. The average Windows/Mac user barely understands how to use their computer. Widespread adoption means meeting those people where they are. Whether that’s a goal worth pursuing is kind of a different question.
My concern is we are solving a wrong problem from the beginning.
GNU/Linux is an OS designed by hackers for hackers(at least in my age). The target users should be admin, not end users like grandma. That’s why Linux desktop is never mainstream despite our community put so much effort on the user experience (but the effort has not wasted)
Before you yell at me, on the other hand, android (shipped with Linux kernel) has a great success because it’s dummy proof design. Even a 2 years old can mess around tablets by his/her own. We can invent million theories, argue and hate each other all days. But there is only one fact. The fact is that mainstream users enjoy the fruit of open source is brought by Android from tablets. Unfortunately, tablets’ gui toolkit is dominated by big corps.
When do we start to put focus on gui toolkit for tablets? We did try, but far away than enough. When do we able to admit new generation use tablets way more than desktop? Seeing the open source communities keep heading the wrong direction make me sad.
Oh look. Yet another post demanding things from a volunteer-based community without actually volunteering their own time to work on solving the problem they’re insisting needs solving.
I’m sure these demands will totally make a difference in ways that putting their time into actually writing code wouldn’t.
ROFL. Kiddo, I’ve been contributing to OSS for over two decades. The day I start caring about what non-contributors think is the day I stop writing code. Either show up with patches or STFU.
By that logic I should demand to get payed for testing your “free” software in real environment
Don’t sit there being obtuse. One of the benefits of foss is that actual users help test the software and bring feedback to make it better
You just want to be thought of as special
Developers of software are a dime a dozen and becoming an outdated profession. Keep the smugness out of this otherwise. Good day
I think it should be encouraged for non technical users to share their insights regarding UI/UX. People who are skilled in building applications often don’t have great skills in that area anyway. Actual UI/UX specialists are even harder to come by it seems.
The issue with this video is that it doesn’t bring in a ton of new insight. Issues regarding the variety of package management solutions are well know for example, and some distros are already solving this by having system packages and flatpaks managed by the same installer.
Correct. There are actual efforts going on to resolve those issues. Which begs the question, why post vague exhortations for people to “do something” about this, rather than focusing the efforts in places where it will make a difference?
This isn’t a post saying “hey, come to this project and pitch in.” This post is just bitching into the ether and then some folks getting butthurt when the pointless performative nonsense is called out for what it is.
Posts like this one happen on a near-daily basis all across FOSS mailing lists. It’s trivial to find numerous, often young, often inexperienced people who think their idea is the one that “fixes everything”. These people reason that everyone should fall over one another to put effort into their magical idea once they see the obviousness and correctness of the idea. Clearly, it’s simply incorrect to find fault in an obviously perfect idea such as this one.
It’s just so weird that literally none of the people with these amazing ideas are the ones doing a “git init” and getting started on the work of actually implementing their amazing ideas. Bizarre how so many spectacular, world-changing ideas need to be worked on by literally anyone BUT their champion. What a horrible world we must live in filled with nasty, evil people who simply won’t volunteer their personal time when we should feel so blessed with this holy relic of an idea.
This narrative is so childish that the only response it deserves is the one echoed by nearly the entire FOSS community, “Patches welcome!”
The fact that Linux still sucks for regular users after all this time is infuriating. What the hell have people even been working on all this time??
It doesn’t though. It’s just different and takes time to learn. Like if a PlayStation only user switched to Xbox or a Mac user switching to windows. It’s different. In my experience Mac isn’t “user friendly” because it does shit different. I took some time to learn it. Now it is
Yeaaahh, but does it though?
I’ve put loads of regular users on Linux and on average they have less issues than they had with windows
That is ignoring the installation. Linux install is download iso, burn it on USB, boot computer with said USB, run the install program, go through the 5-6 pages which takes about 15 minutes, reboot and the machine is done.
Windows 11 install is downloading ISO, burn it on USB, boot computer with said USB and then the boot up immet fails with this vague error. Spend a good hour on Internet searches to find that it’s some bios setting which is fine for Linux, but whatever. Make setting, reboot USB! Setup now crashes again on other gauge error. Spend another 4 hours on sraxhes only to find out that windows iso burning requires a special windows only burning program that will “fix” it and is totally not done on purpose to sabotage Linux users, but fine, were only 5 hours in and still have to start so boot up a VM in Linux, find that usb burner somewhere, download and install that, then download the iso again, burn it, dump it again in the machine and presto, er have an installer, yay!
Go through the pages, and more pages and more crap and install this sponsored content and watch ads and now you need an account at Microsoft and more pages and do you love me? Please let me know that you love me, more feedback because I’m Microsoft and I need feedback and now do you want these games that you hate, and you must install office you will love it even though you’d rather commit sepuku, and a fucking hour of clicking a thousand times later, windows is finally installed …?
Seriously, if I say that installing Linux was ten times easier than windows, it would be the understatement of the year.
In it’s general use, nobody will run into weird shit like they do on windows and to top it off, you got no issues with viruses, no ads nor spyware in the operating system itself, and shit just works.
Yeah, Linux has bugs, just like windows, but the experience is ten times better, I’ll die happily and proud on that hill
“shit just works” I’m sorry but you’re fucking high if you think shit just works on linux. Every problem is a rabbit hole of 3 new problems with 3 more new problems.
I am by no means saying windows is any good, or any better necessarily. But this “Linux works great and is easy to use” is a load of shit and I’m sick of hearing it.
In my experience a stable distribution is a “set and forget”, unless you start tinkering with it.
I have countless of users where I’ve installed something like Linux Mint and it’s been literally running for years without any issues. These users have no idea how to use a computer, except for logging in and opening the browser.
Obviously the more complex a setup, the more shit can go wrong.
Yeah I love linux, but it’s user experience , while light years ahead of what I used in the late nineties and early aughts, is still clunky compared to others.
That being said, honestly most of linux’s issues are GUI related, when it comes to going mainstream. The capabilities and efficiency are far ahead of windows and mac os but most users don’t care.
Directions, examples and mundane work should all be seamless for mainstream consumers.
A good rule of thumb is, " if a user has to look for it to fix it, or open a terminal window to install software, then it won’t be accepted fully.
Mainstream users don’t want to type commands in a prompt. Why does everyone think windows blew DOS out of the water in sales? It wasn’t because DOS wasn’t working. It was, hell early windows ( I started on 3.11 so that’s my limit of knowledge ) still used DOS.
So bottom line. Start putting the non tech consumer first or we’ll forever be stuck in this “almost mainstream” category forever.
So bottom line. Start putting the non tech consumer first or we’ll forever be stuck in this “almost mainstream” category forever.
I’m okay with that.
“Mainstream” users are getting stupider. Even Windows is to difficult for them. They want the Apple walled garden with a subscription plan for their devices and no permissions to do anything that a corporation doesn’t want you to do.
Fuck. That.
So. We just encourage ignorance and security threats so we… can… be … better than them? I don’t think that’s the healthiest outlook …
What we really need is to improve the technical literacy (and overall education too) of the general public. That will help towards solving many other issues as well.
By all means, Linux’s UX should be improved as long as it doesn’t come at the cost of freedom or functionality, but we need to improve as people too.
This exactly.
I enjoy the level of control I have on my Linux machine but I spend about 40% of my time in CLI.
I recently had to troubleshoot a windows machine, and the lack of control was frustrating but every step for that problem was GUI-centric. Everyday people don’t want to remember commands so they can set up their browser and word processor. They want (to them) simple and straightforward.
To us it’s a low bar, and most of us are from the generations that dreamt of a predominantly tech-literate society, but that’s not reality. We have to meet them where they are, and if they want to learn beyond that then we welcome them in.
I don’t see them as mutually exclusive - can’t Linux be user friendly for the non-techie while also offering a techie lots of flexibility and command-line joy? 🤷♂️
They can and should. But they don’t. They really only cater to the techie, because that’s who uses it
Then they got pissed when their “marketing” efforts fall shorts.
Stop acting like non Linux users are dumb. They aren’t. they’ve used the time others spent learning other thing, while others spent their time on techie things . Their priorities were different. Or maybe their poor and don’t care about that as they need a PC but have to work 80 hours to feed their family.
But no. Instead of making life better through foss for those who need it, you’re making Linux some unattainable nerd toy.
We can tell ourselves we don’t care. But we do. Or the thread wouldn’t be here
I agree. It’s not constructive to call non-techies “dumb.” Nor is it helpful to demand they”just” spend 30 min searching for solutions online. If you love tech, this is worthwhile - if you’re, say, a rights activist you’d rather spend that time reading an important report or meeting with people to advance your work; if you’re a retiree with limited means, then it might be overwhelming to “just go online”; and if you’re a musician working on an album, why should you need to spend time on tech when you could be spending that time mixing? I see examples of Linux becoming pretty user friendly compared to days of yore (eg Mint, Ubuntu), but has that improvement somehow compromised the techie side of Linux?
